The Badboys' Good Lips

7

c h a p t e r  7

"Sit."

I looked over my shoulder at the sound of Ryder's voice, frowning when I saw him standing in the doorway of my temporary bedroom. I wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there watching me but there wasn't much to watch. I had only been unpacking my things.

"You could always ask me nicely." I turned back to where I had placed my open suitcase on the desk, almost everything unpacked. I hadn't meant to take long by any means, though I kept zoning out and thinking of all the other problems I had on my plate. Like, what was Cole doing right now? He probably had gone back to the apartment and seen it had been broken into. I didn't have a lot of things, so would he even notice that all my stuff was gone? Was he still angry? Would I see him later in the week on campus?

A part of me was missing him. He was my first and only boyfriend and we had a lot of great times together, despite everything. He was always sorry when he got angry, and being sorry and wanting to be better was proof that he wasn't a terrible person.

I shook my head to recenter myself back to this moment. I think maybe two or so hours had gone by and now I was being interrupted by Ryder once again. And now he was ordering me around, once again.

He didn't move. "Would you prefer I nail you to the sheets through your thighs?"

That didn't sound too pleasant.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I threw the shirt I had been holding back down into the suitcase and took the two steps necessary to cross the room and sit on the cot. "Happy?"

He didn't reply to that and instead took a few casual paces over to where my suitcase was atop the desk, glancing inside. "We're going to go over some rules," he said, casting a glance on my agenda that he had scrutinized earlier today. "You look like you'll need them."

"Maybe if you explained things to me and were a bit nicer then—"

"I didn't ask you to speak," he cut me off, picking my agenda up and opening it like he had done back at my apartment. His fixation on it was a little off-putting, especially since I didn't want him pawing through my small amount of possessions anyways. "You are going to listen."

"Is that a rule or a request?"

He turned a page, "Rule. I don't make requests." He pulled his gaze up to me with a sigh, shutting the book and tossing it back into the near empty suitcase as his eyes took in the rest of the room. They lingered on my cartoon star nightlight that was already plugged into the outlet next to the cot, and I could feel the disdain in his aura. "You don't eat."

"What?" My head reared back slightly, my eyes wide. "Your plan is to starve me?"

"I was making an observation," he leaned against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "And that needs to change."

I hadn't realized my heart beat had sped up a bit in panic, but I felt my chest decompress slightly at his words. "Oh.. well... I eat just fine. I don't require much, really. I'm content with the crackers."

His brows furrowed slightly. "You keep mentioning crackers and I don't know what that means."

"Crackers," I repeated. "You know, like, the ones that come in different flavours? Sometimes you eat them with soup? They pair well with cheese?"